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4 hours ago
Funeral for "Ladybug," 9, Is First for School Tornado Victims
AP
The first funeral for a child killed when a tornado struck the Plaza Towers elementary school in Oklahoma will likely be held Thursday.
Antonia Candelaria, 9, who died along with six other children when Monday’s massive EF-5 twister tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, was due to be buried at a local church. She was nicknamed "Ladybug" and was “specially gifted in art as well as music” and “loved to draw, paint, color and make crafts, according to an obituary published in The Oklahoman. “She was a beautiful young lady on the inside and out,” the obituary said. In total, 24 people were killed and as many as 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed.
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3 hours ago
U.K. Mom Confronts Blood-Soaked Man After Murder
A woman who talked to a blood-soaked, knife-carrying man accused of murdering a British soldier in the southeast London neighborhood of Woolwich on Wednesday, said she did so to protect the crowd that was beginning to gather, NBC News reported. Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, jumped off the bus she was riding when she saw a man slumped on the sidewalk next to a crashed car. Assuming it was a road accident she decided to offer first-aid, but as she got closer, she saw a man covered in blood and carrying a butcher’s knife. She also saw a handgun. “He was obviously a bit excited and the thing was to talk to him,” said Loyau-Kennett, a mother of two. Photos of the scene show her, hands in pockets, speaking apparently calmly to the man. A second alleged attacker, his hands covered in blood and holding a meat cleaver, was captured on video telling passers-by "By Allah we swear by the almighty Allah and we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone."
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9 minutes ago
What’s at Stake in Boy Scouts Vote on Gay Membership
NBC 5 News
After years of emotional debate, the Boy Scouts of America is considering a proposal at its annual meeting to allow gay youths to openly participate in the organization, NBC News reported. The results are expected to be announced shortly after 6 p.m. ET Thursday. Thirteen years ago the Supreme Court ruled that as a private membership organization the Boy Scouts was free to decide whom it would admit. The exclusion of gay Scouts has been the subject of much squabbling and soul searching in the century-old organization — from local troops and councils to online petitions to national board meetings. But many questions — for example: Under the proposal, what would happen to an Eagle Scout who is gay and wants to volunteer as an adult? — still persist. For answers and analysis, click through.
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3 hours ago
Drone Strikes Killed 4 Americans Since 2009: Holder
The Obama administration publicly acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that drone strikes have killed four Americans overseas since 2009, NBC News reported. One of those killed, Anwar Al-Awlaki, was targeted in Yemen for plotting terrorist attacks in the United States. The other three killed were Awlaki's teenage son Abd al-Rahmn Anwar al-Awlaki; Samir Khan, the American who ran al Qaeda’s web-based propaganda magazine Inspire and Jude Kenan Mohammed of Raleigh, N.C., whose name had still been on the FBI's "most wanted" list for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Attorney General Eric Holder said the older Awlaki was the only American citizen targeted, but the other three were not "specifically targeted" and were killed in circumstances that the administration did not explain. The revelation came in a letter from Holder to congressional leaders and on the eve of a major address by President Barack Obama on his counterterrorism policy.
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3 hours ago
Tamerlan Tsarnaev Had Role in Triple Homicide: Sources
Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a Florida mixed martial arts fighter -- who was killed while being questioned by the FBI in Orlando on Wednesday -- murdered three people in Massachusetts in 2011 after a drug deal went awry, sources told NBC News. What began as a drug ripoff ended as a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and his friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them, the sources said. An FBI agent shot and killed Todashev on Wednesday after he allegedly attacked the agent with a knife, investigators said. The agent sustained non-life threatening injuries, the FBI said in a statement. Todashev was not suspected of being involved in the bombing, but he did confess to being involved in the brutal 2011 killings in Waltham, Mass., investigators said.
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46 minutes ago
Cleveland "Hero" Gets Free Burgers for Life
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Charles Ramsey, the Big-Mac-munching man who was credited with helping a woman escape from a Cleveland, Ohio, home where she had been held captive for over a decade, will enjoy free burgers for life, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. More than a dozen Ohio restaurants and at least one in Pennsylvania have pledged free burgers for life to Ramsey, who mentioned in numerous interviews earlier this month that he had been eating a McDonald's burger when he heard screams from the house across the street. A restaurant where he works as a dishwasher also created a special burger in his honor. The “Ramsey Burger” started out as a temporary menu item, but has since become permanent and the concept has spread to other restaurants, according to the Plain Dealer. “We want to honor our local hero with local food,” Cleveland restaurateur Scott Kuhn told the paper. “He stopped his meal midway through to help those women."
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2 hours ago
Jobless Claims Drop More Than Expected
AP
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, according to newest figures out of the Labor Department on Thursday, Reuters reported. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits are down by 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, falling below the 350,000 mark that economists normally view as a sign of an improving job market. That's close to the five-year low of 338,000 registered during the first week of May. On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that that the job market is improving, but that higher taxes and government spending cuts likely will slow economic growth this year. He said it was too early for the Fed to abandon its efforts to boost economic growth by keeping short-term interest rates near zero and buying $85 billion in bonds every month to pump money into the economy and push down longer term interest rates, according to Reuters.
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3 hours ago
Sen. Gillibrand: Sex Assaults Undermine Military
Democratic New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand comments on recent reports of sexual assaults in the military.
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 10:14 AM
I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations.
3 hours ago
Okla. at Risk of More Tornadoes as Storms Threaten Much of U.S.
AP
More bad weather – thunderstorms bringing large hail and the chance of “a tornado or two” – was in the forecast for southwestern and central Oklahoma and northwestern Texas on Thursday, NBC News reported. The risk of severe thunderstorms extended from Texas and Florida to New England and the Great Lakes and from Texas up to Montana and Washington. “The activity is expected to be far less significant than the outbreak earlier this week, but hail could be particularly large in northwest Texas and western Oklahoma,” the National Weather Service said. In the Northeast, the weather service said “storms may undergo a gradual intensification” with a chance of “mainly isolated damaging wind.” “Any severe threat should diminish by early evening,” it said.
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Bronx "Ghetto Tours" Halted Amid Residents' Outrage
AP
3 hours ago
West Point Sergeant Charged with Secretly Filming Female Cadets
A staff member at West Point is accused of hiding cameras in the women’s shower and locker room. Army Sgt. 1st Class, Michael McClendon was relieved of his duties at West Point and has been charged with four counts of indecent acts, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment and violations of good order and discipline, according to The New York Times.
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Jersey Shore Towns to Vacationers: We’re Still Here
Ryan Morrill/The SandPaper
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 9:00 PM
NASA Funds Project to Make Space Meals with 3-D Printer
NASA is paying out $125,000 to study the use of 3-D printing technology for food preparation in space, NBC News reported. "We will be building the components for a prototype" over the grant's six-month period, David Irwin, principal investigator for the project at Texas-based Systems and Materials Research Consultancy, told NBC News. Generic mixes of starch, protein and fat can be transformed into food elements that result in food items like warm pizza with fake cheese, sauce and pepperoni, according to NBC News. The contract was signed on Wednesday and the project is part of NASA's efforts to widen the menu options for future space travelers on Mars and asteroid missions. Astronauts are currently eating pre-packaged, pre-processed foods.
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N.J. Shore Town Destroyed by Sandy Confronts an Uncertain Future
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- UK mom calms man with blood-soaked knife after suspected deadly terror attack
- Boy Scouts vote on gay members: What's at stake
- Amid the rubble, laughter and tears for one family devastated by tornado
- First Thoughts: Obama to scale back drone policy
- Tornado birth: Mom endures labor as twister destroys hospital
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